Tom Snogles is the founder and owner of Sun Power Lawn Care, a Gainesville, FL electric lawn care and maintenance business dedicated to quiet and sustainable service.

A business can never be too green, as far as I’m concerned.

Here at Sun Power Lawn Care, we already use sustainable practices and emissions-free equipment every day. I’m proud to have built this company on renewable energy. But that doesn’t mean our work promoting a cleaner, greener world is done.

With the help of the Gainesville-based nonprofit We Are Neutral, we plan to get even greener in 2017.

We Are Neutral helps businesses, organizations, and individuals reduce their carbon footprints by matching their emissions with carbon offsets. These carbon offsets support energy upgrades for low-income homes and tree plantings on conservation lands. By offsetting Sun Power Lawn Care’s carbon emissions with We Are Neutral, we will mitigate our environmental impact in a way that directly promotes the sustainability of our local community.

One of the first steps in the process is calculating where most of our emissions come from. Since we use entirely electric lawn care equipment and green landscaping techniques, I knew our day-to-day work wouldn’t have a huge footprint.

Instead, most of our emissions come from the peripherals of the business: our gas-powered pickup truck is a big emitter, and our office usage, from heating/AC to water, is another.

We Are Neutral was able to provide specific numbers on our emissions and where they’re coming from. That’s key, because going green isn’t always straightforward, and the results aren’t always obvious. Having hard numbers on our existing footprint and how we can improve will help us take more meaningful steps to becoming greener as a company.

So, we have the numbers – what are our next steps for going carbon neutral?

Long-term, we want an electric truck. I’ve got my eye on a Tesla model that’s supposedly in the works…

Before that happens, though, we can rely on We Are Neutral’s carbon offsets.

SPLC team members Jay and Bailey hard at work at a We Are Neutral tree planting

We’ll be purchasing offsets that will go towards green upgrades for low-income homes, provided free to the families who live there. Not only will the offsets reduce overall emissions in the area, but they’ll also bring down energy bills for these families.

Then there’s the tree plantings. Trees act sort of like an air filter, by taking in CO2 and releasing oxygen. So adding new trees to the environment can help mitigate the impact of emissions. You might even find our team putting saplings in the ground ourselves at a We Are Neutral planting event. (If you haven’t been, it’s a great way to support and experience our local ecosystem!)

Going carbon neutral brings Sun Power Lawn Care that much closer to our vision for a cleaner, healthier world. And for our clients, it means knowing that you’re part of the solution to climate change.

But we can’t do this alone. If more companies stop relying on gas, our air and water will be cleaner, and we won’t need big pipelines and oil tanks running through our ecosystem. When there’s an oil spill, lives and land are hurt – when there’s a solar spill, everyone’s outside soaking it up.

Thanks again to We Are Neutral for helping Sun Power Lawn Care become as green as we can be.